What is a Virtual PBX?
A PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is an industry term for a phone system. It is a costly piece of hardware that you would purchase for your business. This hardware controls all the phones in your location. A Virtual PBX is a phone system that is hosted by a service company such as Onebox. There is no hardware for you to buy. The system is run and maintained by Onebox. It also includes many features not found in any standard PBX that you could purchase. Onebox Receptionist is the premier Virtual PBX service available today.
A Virtual PBX is an affordable alternative to the high costs of buying and maintaining a hardware-based PBX system. When you sign up with RingCentral, you’ll get your own toll free or local number that will serve as your main business number. When multiple callers dial your number simultaneously they will be directed to extensions and mailboxes. You can transfer callers to different extensions, which can be assigned to employees and departments dispersed around the country—and the world. With FindMe/FollowMe call forwarding, customers call your main number and are directed to your geographically dispersed team. You can redirect calls to different numbers at any time, or have calls automatically routed to different numbers in a fixed order. In addition, you can assign direct dial numbers to individual extensions providing your employees and/or departments with their own numbers. A RingCentral Virtual PBX also allows you to give yourself a local phone number in one city—say Los Angeles—a
Computers can help us do all sorts of things these days, including telephone calls. This is especially true for businesses. A computerized device that helps connect a business with the outside world is called a PBX, or Private Branch eXchange. A PBX does much more than connect the person making the call with the person taking the call. It is, first and foremost for a business, a switchboard. Using a PBX, you can have all of your calls answered with a custom business greeting, offer an audio scroll-through of your employee directory, provide a connection directly to a specific person or department, play music while the system is on hold, and even take voice mail for employees who are not in the building at the time of the call. Most businesses have this sort of service, and most business managers never give it a second thought. The PBX is a phone system with varying degrees of computer use. The most sophisticated systems offer conference calls that include third-party access. In the rei
The following is one definition of a virtual PBX phone system: “A virtual PBX is a hosted service whereby a company’s phone operations reside in an external center, yet the phone is answered in a manner that clients and callers are unaware of the remote nature of this service. Examples include the automatic answering of a company’s 800 number with an IVR that prompts the caller for the department or extension of an individual. When this information is obtained, the virtual PBX transfers the caller to this individual via a remote connection or dial out.” DSC provides phone systems operating in call center environments that can automatically distribute phone calls to remote locations or individuals. This is also commonly referred to as virtual call center. Our phone systems can answer your calls automatically, route them internally using our IVR technology, automatically provide needed information from your database or websites, or connect the caller to your employees. This service can b
Start your evaluation by understanding the difference between a traditional phone system and a virtual PBX. With a traditional PBX, calls come into your business and go to the back room or telecom closet where the PBX hardware and servers are located. That equipment provides all the necessary routing, voice mail, and then passes the call on to the right extension. With a virtual PBX, your incoming calls are connected to the hosted provider’s data center, instead of your office. Your callers still here a custom message that you record, but the auto-attendant delivering it is at the vendor’s location. Callers can leave messages, dial extensions directly, choose a name from a directory, or pick from a menu of departments and recorded messages. All of this is handled at the data center: the call doesnt reach your office until the call is routed to a live person. Advantages There several reasons for the increasing popularity of virtual PBX systems: • A virtual PBX can bring multiple offices